The announcement for the next 30 minutes departure schedule of a bus and its route, platform number and destination will be made in two languages Konkani and English at Panaji, Mapusa and Margao KTC bus stands whereas announcements in other bus stands will be made in Marathi also.

KTCL has signed a MoU with Vritti Solutions Ltd, a Pune-based software solution company to set up such a system in all 13 KTC bus stands on terms and condition that all expenses will be borne by the company and in return the corporation will give them the rights to use the platform for advertisements.

The company has developed PAS at all bus stands, and has placed high quality audio speakers with LCD displays for audio-visual information. The cost for setting up the audio-visual system at each KTC bus stand has been estimated by the company at Rs 8-10 lakh.

Addressing the media after the launch of PAS system, KTCL chairman Carlos Almeida said that it is an electronic information system which provides automatic announcement of inter-state and intra-state bus departure time replacing the manual announcement system.

KTCL managing director Derrick Pereira Neto, workshop manager SL Ghate and other board members were present at the function.

“Since we have been receiving complaints from passengers about the poor management and lack of bus information that had forced them to move to other modes of transport, the corporation has responded to the need of the hour,” Almeida said adding, “Soon all other 13 KTC bus stands will have PAS system.”

Explaining the method of operation, Almeida said, “Whenever a bus driver places the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology card on the system, information on departure is shared with each control room on each bus stand through central control room from where the information is updated in real time.”

Speaking on the sidelines of the function, Almeida said that under JNNURM scheme, KTC will soon procure 125 new buses at a cost of Rs 44 crore adding, “We have also choked out a plan to set up another depot at Porvorim at the cost of Rs 8 crore. Earlier this month, we had scrapped 61 old buses.”

When questioned over fatal accidents involving KTC buses, Almeida said, “We have been providing practical as well as on-road driver safety training on how to curtail accidents. We have been consistently trying to improve the consistency of drivers by encouraging his well-being.”